[KS] The Mystery of the Breve

Larry Gillick gillick at gmail.com
Tue Sep 15 11:38:46 EDT 2009


Ah, Frank, since you're referencing a flaw in Wikipedia, perhaps you  
would be so kind as to fix it, for the benefit of the entire Wikipedia  
community. I'm not qualified (wrong academic street cred.) to make  
such a fix myself.

Larry
---
Larry Gillick
Assistant Professor
Digital & Broadcast Media
/ Arts Communication
Shenandoah University
---
252-412-7511
ProfG at digital-ed.com
www.SU.edu/mug
Twitter.com/gillick
---
Sent from my iPhone

On Sep 14, 2009, at 1:43 PM, Frank Hoffmann <hoffmann at koreaweb.ws>  
wrote:

> You made your point clear. Thank you.
>
> Regarding replacements or left-out of brèves, both has been practice 
> d heavily on this list when using older email software -- leaving th 
> em out as well as replacing them by ô, û (included in the ASCII set) 
> . Other than what you try to demonstrate with your place name exampl 
> e this did certainly not lead to more confusion than the usage of tw 
> o or three romanization systems at the same time (in publications, l 
> ibraries, news media, museums, etc.)! And I have not seen anyone in  
> Korean Studies who, as you claimed, would have made the argument tha 
> t replacing brèves with circumflexes would be an unforgivable sin.
>
> NORTH Korea: this is an entirely different topic, of course. You  
> wrote:
>
>>> As I said earlier, I would have suggested to simply allow
>>> "eo" and "eu" (...), and to replace the apostrophe by 'h'.
>>> (...) Is that true?  I've never seen the spelling Phyo˜ngyang
>>> anywhere.
>
> (1) As you already pointed out yourself, "eo" and "eu" are used  
> instead of o and u + brève. "Phyo˜ngyang" is therefore no valid exam 
> ple.
>
> (2) The "h" is indeed used to replace the apostrophe in McC-R for an  
> aspirated t' or p'. For example "thongil" instead of "t'ongil."
> Regarding the "Phyeongyang" (not "Phyo˜ngyang" in any case) example/ 
> case, "Seoul" is, according to McC-R also an exception, and other su 
> ch exceptions have been added later, such as "Syngman Rhee."
>
> You refer to the Wikipedia -- probably to this page -- yes?
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revised_Romanization_of_Korean
> The following sentence there, whoever phrased it this way, seems far  
> to bold, is not correct this way.
> QUOTE: "North Korea continues to use a version of the McCune- 
> Reischauer system of Romanization, which was in official use in  
> South Korea from 1984 to 2000."
> For example, the South Korean modified version of McC-R never used  
> "j" as an initial -- North Koreans write "Joson" or "Joseon" when  
> referring to their last dynasty or their present country name. And  
> the pro-North Korean group in Japan becomes "Chongryon" -- it would  
> begin with Ch' according to McC-R or the modified South Korean  
> version of it. Furthermore, according to their system it should be  
> "Chongryeon" (eo), but in various North Korean and Japanese  
> publications both variants are used seemingly arbitrarily. The North  
> Korean confusion of using their romanization systems seems no  
> different than it is in South Korea.
>
>
> Frank
>
>
> --
> --------------------------------------
> Frank Hoffmann
> http://koreaweb.ws
>




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